


Three words

by Saphirott



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester Takes Care of Sam Winchester, Emotional Hurt, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, One Shot, Presumed Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 05:14:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16927164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saphirott/pseuds/Saphirott
Summary: One shot.It's three simple words. Saying them out loud will make everything change. Even though it's late, even though everything has already changed.Created from what happened in chapter 14 x 8, Byzantium. (Contains spoilers)





	Three words

**Three words**

**By: Saphirott**

 

Three words.

 

He would never have dared to put them on the table. Even though he feels them.

 

It was Sam. It's always Sam who does these things. He always knew that his brother was braver than he was. More honest with his feelings.

 

Three words.

 

And he can swear that he agrees with each of them. He never thought that could happen, but here it is. This feeling has been reasserting itself for the past few days. Stinging his soul with a pain he had hoped not to feel again for a long time. A pain that grows with each second that continues to look at that table.

 

Close his eyes and swallow hard. Impotence hitting his throat as his ears fill with the cadence of verses recited in another language.

 

And he prays.

 

He prays even though he knows that effort is useless. That God left the house without looking back, leaving doors and windows open, leaving them to chaos and their luck. And when have they had good luck?

 

The chants seem not to be bearing fruit. Magic doesn't seem to be doing "its magic". And he doesn't dare look at Sam.

 

He feels his presence by his side, close, but not close enough. Not when he can feel his fear under a fragile hope in which he knows he is turning his whole being upside down. He wants to hug him, lie to him and tell him that everything is going to be fine, that they are going to get it, that they will be brought him back.

 

He doesn't want to see that pain in his eyes again. He doesn't want to fail him again, he doesn't want to have to convince him again that he's gone. He doesn't think he can stand another night like the one before, nor can all the alcohol in the world give him enough strength to be able to handle and suffocate the devastation emanating from his brother's body, his life, his everything.

 

**********

 

Yesterday, his heart began to beat again when he found him sitting there against the wheel of the Impala. So small beneath the enormous dark and cold vault of a starless sky, as dull as Sam looked. He remembers the moment of panic when doubt as to what he could have done assaulted his mind, and how he finally breathed when he knew he didn’t. God, he felt so afraid, he couldn't handle losing them both.

 

Yesterday, he picked up his exhausted brother from the ground and took him home, to that sort of home they had created that now felt bigger and empty than ever. They lost themselves in a rosary of glasses filled with ice and amber, trying to numb those memories under which alcohol brings melancholy smiles from a past that will never return.

 

Yesterday he felt that his heart could no longer be broken into more pieces when he followed him to the room. When to get there he had to go through that other door after which everything had passed, the one that still keeps his remains. In which now there is nothing but silence. When he found his brother sitting on the bed, with his back to the door, so rigid that even he was in pain.

 

“Sammy...”, whispers from the door, even without daring to enter, evaluating the space his brother needs.

 

There was no answer. Just fists clenched against the mattress and knuckles so white that the bone seemed to want to surface. And he knew it. He knew the dam was going to explode, what he didn't know was if he could put the pieces back together.

 

“Sam... Listen...”

 

“No!”

 

“Sammy...”

 

“Hell, no! No! Why, Dean? Why him?”

 

“I don't know...” And he feels the words scratch his burnt throat with drinks, and how his gaze gets lost in the worn carpet. The silence grows and tense, occupying all the space, and he doesn't know what to say to put it aside. What can one say that is good for something?

 

His chest shrinks when he has the courage to look up and finds Sam looking at him. His eyes, wild and bright, overflowing with a humidity that can no longer contain, inquisitive and at the same time transmitting a silent supplication, a solution. Like when they were little and had a problem with their father or at school, when Sam trusted that he could fix everything. But he can't. Not now. Not this.

 

“Sam...”

 

“You don't understand,” he mumbles. And it hurts.

 

He advances two steps into the room when the surprise of the explosion stops him. The shattered glass on the floor as liquid debris slides through the wall. “You don't understand! He..., he... Fuck, I...”

 

Sam's on his feet now. His chest flutters in short, rapid breaths, and anyone would step back from the imposing image of his rage, from the swift movement that makes everything on the table disappear, from the heartbreaking scream that emanates from his throat. But Dean doesn't. Dean doesn't take a step back but three steps forward. And he embraces him, holds it tightly even though he doesn't, even though his arms are stiff on both sides and his body is tense under contact. Because he sees the truth behind that image, he always sees what's under Sam's skin.

 

“I get it. Sam, I understand," he says as he squeezes his hair tighter, as he wraps a hand around his hair and strokes it slowly, trying to calm him down. Recording with his body every tremor, every breath, every sign that indicates it could get worse.

 

Sam is still tense in his arms and knows that he doesn't believe him, that he doesn't really think he understands what he’s talking about, that he doesn't know what he meant to Sam. How does he explain to him that he realized from the first minute that he saw them together? How does he explain the fear he felt for that? How does he explain to him that the only reason he gave him a chance was because of him? And how does he explain to him that they're now on the same page, that he had felt the same for a long time?

 

He has no words for that, not tonight. That's why he just walks away, just lets his eyes talk, show the truth. Because Sam and he can lie to each other in many ways, but never by looking into each other's eyes. And Sam sees it, in the background of those impossibly green irises, the sensation that they have amputated a part of you, torn out without permission and too quickly, as he himself feels.

 

“Dean...”

 

And Dean sketches a tight smile that lasts a thousandth of a second, a ghost on a face mortified by what has just happened and what is to come. And Sam hugs him back, and both allow themselves to cry. Because nobody sees them, because they need them, because you can't always be strong.

 

Dean wraps his brother in bed, pretending to be able to protect him from everything, at least trying. He strokes his hair until he feels it asleep and whispers a thousand "I'm sorry" that Sam won't be able to argue with and that he doesn't want him to.

 

Guilt is a heavy burden. He can't sleep, but there's still whiskey in the kitchen.

 

**********

 

Now, the room is in semi-darkness, a faint yellowish glow emanates from the trembling flames of the candles that frame that flat surface in front of them. To his body inert and strangely at peace. In peace in the wrong way.

 

He is just a child.

 

A child should never be like this. It is not natural. It is not the right thing.

 

_"He's just a child..."_

 

_"He's just a kid. It's our..."_

 

He can't say. Not even in his head. Because saying it makes it real. God, it already feels like it's real. He knows it is. And it's not fair. It's not fair.

 

He and Sam had opted for a hard life. Just the two of them, brothers, couple, lovers. They were fine with that, knowing everything it meant, giving up everything they could have had with someone else.

 

Dean had thought about it many times. About everything he couldn't give Sam, everything his brother gave up to be with him. He had always felt guilty about that. Sam had obviously never blamed him for anything, but he knew it. He knew Sam better than he knew himself. He could read his silences, see through the glow of his eyes and find that melancholy hidden in the background. That hidden drawer waiting to be filled.

 

Dean couldn't give him that. He could go to hell and back for Sam, but he could never give him that. And it hurt. But somehow, for most of the time, they were okay with it.

 

And then he came.

 

And may the very dogs of hell drag him back into their hole if he ever thought this could happen.

 

He should have killed him. Himself. When he still didn't care. When he only saw it as a threat. Before this happened. Before he shattered their souls instead of destroying their bodies.

 

_"I should have killed him. I should... Fucking son of a bitch. Why did you do this to us?"_

 

He's shaking. He knows. He feels the cold discomfort of hopelessness and fear rising along his spine as he grinds his teeth trying to regain control. Trying to be strong. To Sam.

 

He wasn't there when it happened. He left him alone. He ran away from the room because he couldn't stand to see it going out, as he told them everything was fine. To them, to them who should have taken better care of him. He ran away and left Sam alone with him, let him go through that trance without his support. What did that say about him?

 

He failed them both.

 

He's not going to fail now.

 

He doesn't want to, but he feels he can't. He can't see him on that table and he can't close his eyes and let himself be carried away by all those memories that seem too scarce to him, but enormously painful.

 

He knows that he will fail again. That the rage is swirling in his stomach, pushing him to take that violent road that would end all this farce at once. He wants to. God wants it so badly. It's not working. They have to end it, abandon hope, shout their anger and simply mourn their loss.

 

They have done it before. They can do it. The pain will go away and serve to give them another reason to keep fighting. Someday it will. Or maybe not. Perhaps this pain, which feels so different from others, will not.

 

_"There is no pain comparable to losing a child..."_

 

Maybe it' ll stay here and destroy them both.

 

Long, thin fingers close around his. They squeeze his hand sending a heat he felt he had lost. And he does not have to look, just squeeze his hand and let him hold him today, give him hope. The one who gives him the strength to continue. As he always did, as he wishes him to continue to do. In spite of what may happen today when that recitation ends, when they may not get a good result.

 

**End**


End file.
